Braves Chart of the Day: April 22, 2009

Another day, another Braves chart.

We’ll look at a possibly unfamiliar stat today: Ultimate Zone Rating. One of many “all-encompassing” fielding metrics, UZR is “The number of runs above or below average a fielder is in both range runs, outfield arm runs, double play runs and error runs combined,” according to FanGraphs. If you want to make a rough estimate of the win value of a player’s fielding (or hitting, or anything else), use 1 win per 10 runs as a guideline. Catchers are not included in this data.

These stats are through Sunday’s games, when Franklin Gutierrez, Nelson Cruz, and Jay Bruce were tied for the league lead with a 3.7 UZR.

Not a whole lot of good things to say about the defense, except that Prado and Infante have been solid fill-ins. Francoeur’s team-leading UZR of 2.0 is actually below average for his position, and it would be a whole lot worse if not for his good arm. I think Schafer will get better, too.